Hornby Town Plan

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30938, 20 December 1965, Page 16

Hornby Town Plan

Town planners are bound to think ahead; and they usually think ahead both of the local bodies they advise and the businessmen who put their own, individual, interpretations on zoning schemes. Harmonious relations between all three should produce results satisfactory to ratepayers and taxpayers, traffic engineers, commerce, industry, and residents. The Paparua County Council’s scheme for the development of the Hornby shopping centre, which is now coming under the scrutiny of other authorities, has been criticised by the National Roads Board, which is responsible for the improvement of the No. 1 State Highway through Hornby. The Board’s objections to the ribbon development of the shopping area on both sides of the highway are well founded. A shopping area on one side of the highway would permit the separation of through traffic from shopping traffic and trade vehicles.

The township now serves an area less populous than might be desired to sustain the development of a large shopping centre. Shopkeepers look to passing traffic to augment local custom. The council reasonably wishes to encourage full use of the land available for commercial development However, experience in the places where shopping centres bestride main roads should warn the Paparua County Council of the dangers it invites in its scheme. The problems of a divided shopping centre will not be solved by setting shop fronts back from the main traffic lanes; pedestrians will merely have further to walk and more traffic hazards to negotiate. Overbridges or tunnels to connect the two parts, might be the only palliative—an expensive one. The council cannot reasonably claim that it is putting local interests before those of through traffic if business relies on through traffic for additional trade and the conflict of traffic and shopping impairs the convenience of both. The failure of the Minister of Works to recommend changes in the plan is not of much consequence since the advice of the Regional Planning Authority to build the centre on the north side of the highway was ignored many years ago. Careful planning might yet avoid some of these difficulties, and the relief afforded by the southern motorway might reduce them. But by the time that road is built, the Hornby township might be capable of standing on its own feet, a large, unified centre sustained by local trade. In any event, corrective measures should not be a charge on the National Roads Board. If the concept of a divided centre is thought to be in the interests of county residents and businessmen the burden must be theirs.